Becca The LDS adventure at Hope Lutheran Church

So today, Hannah and I went to the Hope Lutheran Church. Going into the service, I did not have any expectations, as I am not familiar with the Lutheran faith. When we first arrived, it did not appear that there would be many people there, and there wasn’t. This was kind of a nice change though, it makes it more comfortable and more of a one-on-one kind of thing. When we got to the “Sanctuary” (the room in which they hold the worship service) we were promptly greeted by the Pastor of the church. He was a very nice man and was very welcoming. He introduced us to another man who proceeded to get us a paper that gave information on what to expect during a church service; it was very helpful. The view from the bay windows gave a beautiful lookout to Departure Bay and the surrounding area: it was quite breathtaking, especially at such an early hour.

There were only about 12 people there, as this was the early morning church service. This service differs from the late morning in a couple of ways. Firstly, there was no music. I thought it was different, but it helped with the aesthetic of the service, which was nice. The early service is also more of a time to come and talk with people while having a sermon and Eucharist (their word for communion, I believe) at the same time.

The service started by two candles on a table being lit. Then there was a prayer, which was outlined in the program that was on the chair. Some scriptures were read by some members of the congregation, which is good because it lets everyone get involved. For me, it was a bit weird not to have a song, even though I just said that not having a song added to the aesthetic of the meeting, which was good. For me and my beliefs, it is nice to have a song when opening because it helps to invite the spirit into the lesson for the day. Without a song, it feels just a little bit off. One thing that did confuse me throughout the whole time was that there were some callbacks that Hannah and I did not know. It would have been nice if someone had told us, “Hey, when the Pastor says this, you say this.” But no one did, so we just stayed silent, kind of awkwardly at times.

More prayers were read and then the Pastor started to give a lesson. The lesson was on love; a topic I do enjoy. The main message I got from it was to love anyone who is standing in front of you, no matter what their age, race or religion might be. As a way to illustrate this, the Pastor told us of when he was a Pastor in a jail. I thought that was pretty awesome. It was a nice lesson. Oh, and I call it a lesson, but it may have a different name that I don’t know about. There was time for the people in the congregation to speak about things that were important to them, which happened to tie in with our lesson theme. At this point, I was still super tired and was trying to pay attention, but my mind wandered a bit a couple of times.

It was now time for Eucharist (if I am using that phrase correctly). They said the Lord’s Prayer as a prayer on their bread and wine. Hannah and I were fortunate to know it, so we could join in. The wording was different from the traditional theme though. Instead of using the word “thy” they used “your”. I do prefer the “thy” as I think it gives more of a respectful tone to it. Plus, when you have it translated as close as possible from the original language that the bible was written in, “thy” was used. I don’t get why people change it. Do people not understand the language enough? It’s not that difficult. When you have someone, namely a “scholar” that goes through the bible and writes what he thinks the verses means in “modern day language”, then you are only getting his opinion from those scriptures. You are supposed to take your own meaning out of the scriptures, which is harder to do in this case. That is the biggest annoyance I have with the New Revised Standard Version. Why does it have to be revised? That’s something I don’t understand. My belief is that we should all be using the King James Version because it is the closest possible literal translation from Hebrew. Now, that was a bit off topic. Getting back to Eucharist. So Hannah and I said the Lord’s Prayer, except where we got confused at the end because they had changed it.

As Hannah already stated, we didn’t plan on taking Eucharist, but ended up doing so because we felt bad if we were to deny the Pastor. I remembered that he said they had grape juice for people that couldn’t drink alcohol so I know I would have to have that. Luckily Hannah had a sip first because I looked at her and asked if it had alcohol. She then told the Pastor I couldn’t have alcohol, so I got grape juice. I thank Hannah for saying that I couldn’t drink it!

After Eucharist, everyone shakes each others hand and says “Peace be with you.” I thought that was quite nice. It makes people have contact with everyone in the group, which creates a sense of unity towards your church group. When it was time to go, the Pastor moved his hand in the shape of the cross and said, “May the peace of the Lord be with you” and we were dismissed.

All in all, it was quite a nice experience. I had a good time and felt very welcomed by everyone. The Pastor seemed like a pretty cool dude. Next time Hannah and I need to try the later service. That was way too early.